FlameFrost Legacy By Epic Dragon

In recent years we’ve seen indie developers take on some pretty ambitious projects, and pull it off, but Epic Dragon takes things to a whole new level. This indie outfit composes of only a programmer and artist, but these two guys plan on creating an MMORPG. We are not talking pixel art or retro art visuals either, but full-blown 3D and tons of detail. Even more amazing, they plan for the whole thing to run inside a modern browser without the need for any plug-ins to be installed first and for players to get in the game within seconds.

Judging by the trailer the developers were definitely influenced by Dungeons & Dragons and old-school genre classics such as Baldur’s Gate. According to their Kickstarter page, they also count modern MMOs, such as World of Warcraft amongst their influences, which is a pretty interesting mix. With 43 different skills to master, ranging from Herbalism to Planar Travel, along with more than 100 spells, it doesn’t sound like FlameFrost will be lacking in depth. Players will be able to develop their characters in non-linear fashion as each class will have their own unique spells and abilities. In addition to hundreds of different creatures crossing your path, the game will also feature 28 epic bosses to defeat.

Hoarders might be in for a tough time though, as the game promises over 50,000 unique items to get your hands on while the gameworld will be populated by more than 1,000 non-player characters. Even the trade system with NPC merchants will be dynamic, which means stock can be depleted and you have the chance to get your hands on rare or unique items other players might miss out on.

Although the term “free-to-play” has become synonymous these days with “pay-or-prepare-to-grind” FlameFrost promises to do things a little differently. While the experience your character gains through combat is used to advance their skills, it does not affect their overall character level. Instead, levels are gained randomly if you manage to kill a “worthy” opponent in the world. The chances of this happening is apparently random, although your odds will increase along with character skills. Since each kill in essence becomes a gamble there are no experience bars to fill up by grinding through creatures for the next level. Until we have tried out this system we can’t comment on whether it is effective or not, but anything that shakes up the traditional MMORPG grind is worth a shot in our books.

Players will have access to three different races during character creation, with a fourth planned for a future expansion. In addition to their race, you will also be able to select one of three different classes for your character, which determines what spells and abilities they will have. When it comes to gameplay, there is a travel mode and combat mode. The former features a top down view of the world map where players can travel to interesting locations, talk to non-player characters and interact with other players. Combat mode on the other hand takes place on a separate isometric battlefield, which will be different for each region, and takes players in for a closer view of the action. Battles are turn-based, but to avoid wasting everyone’s time, players who don’t make a move within 30 seconds skip their turn. Don’t worry if you are not into PVP encounters either as there are different regions in the world, each with their own level of danger.

All of this sounds quite awesome, so we had our doubts whether a two-man team would be able to pull it off, but according to Epic Dragon they have nearly completed the game already! Without any outside backing the duo has turned to Kickstarter to get the ball rolling for the release of the game. Things like decent severs and reliable data centers are not cheap, and the game will also need a player support team.

These days it is very difficult to get players excited about MMORPG titles, especially free to play ones, but we like the ideas that Epic Dragon are bringing to the table. FlameFrost sounds like it has the potential to be really good, but it is going to need a lot of help from the community. Check out the Kickstarter video below to see the game in action and then head over to the Kickstarter page for more information. The campaign looks like it is off to a slow start, but hopefully more people will start to realize that it is not just another run-off-the-mill MMORPG.